Confessions of a Social Media Junkie

I was just browsing Hunch.com’s recommendation for vampire TV shows. In case you don’t know me, I heart vampire TV shows. I heart them very much.

I like that Hunch knows that about me too, because the site very thoughtfully gave me a personalized list of bloody good television programs. Get it? Bloody good? Ha-ha! Ahem. Yes, I laugh at my own jokes.

There are some vampire shows on the list that I don’t care for. Like ‘The Gates’. I tried to like it. Honest I did…but it’s terrible. (I won’t even link to it. Is it even still airing?)

And there are some other shows I’m interested in checking out, like Being Human and Ultraviolet.

All this to say, I can tell Hunch which of the shows I like and I can personalize the recommendations further by answering a few more questions about the genre, the decade I want to focus on, etc., (like the example in the image to the left).

Many of the questions that Hunch displays are submitted by other Hunch users.

I can keep answering the questions if I want. I can even recommend a question for future users and give pros and cons for each recommendation displayed.

The goal is to make Hunch smarter for the next user interested in the same topic.

All this to say, Hunch is a fun site to sift through. Just select a topic and go. It’s fun (and addicting) to see how closely this recommendation engine can get to matching topics to your interests.

Oh and for the record…

My favourite vampire TV shows in order of liking:

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer – pure awesome. Joss Whedon is a genius. The story arc for this show is thought-out, layered and emotive in all the right ways.
• Angel – of course I like Angel…it’s a Buffy spin-off! Maybe not how the series ended, like the storyline was swept up into a dustpan, but I understand Joss didn’t have a choice. His show was being cancelled and while Joss did dot his i’s and crossed his t’s, the ending was sloppy. (Joss, it hurts me to hurt you, but what I say is true).
• True Blood – based on the Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris, the show’s creators have balanced a fine line of staying true to the original storyline while changing things up enough to make it work for TV. It’s gory, funny and hot, hot television.
• Vampire Diaries – I haven’t read the books so can’t comment on them. I do know the TV series switched up some of  L.J. Smith‘s storyline but I don’t miss what I don’t know. I enjoy the “push-pull” of the relationship between Elena and Stefan (“we can’t be together” / “we have to be together” / “no we can’t” / but here we are…together” / etc, etc.). And have you seen the season finale? Oooh…trouble has come to town!